The country ship might be dead, but her flag still flapped out in the wind, stating her defiance.
A fourth broadside into Nantes and the crews scampered to starboard, pointing the loaded cannon.
“Shoot!”
The guns swept inboard, came up to the limit of their breeching, rammer swabbing out, second captain taking over to load, and prime while the rammer dashed to load on the larboard, where he would swab out before running back.
Above the unceasing crash and bellow of the great guns came the lesser, sharper rattle of musketry as the Marines and sharpshooters sought their targets.
“Country ship’s not under command, sir.”
Both anchor cables had been cut by the mass of grapeshot and she was drifting before the wind, already barely a hundred yards offshore and spinning slowly. There was a thin trail of blood down her side and a frantic escort of sharks, fins cutting across her bows and stern, up and down her length.
Cobra joined the chaser in firing on the brig, a first broadside silencing her, a second and she was gone, powder room penetrated, timbers flying hundreds of feet into the air, bows and stern separate, sinking in an instant.
Frederick staggered as a twelve pound ball whistled past his head; he realised as he steadied himself that it was one of only two that had come aboard in the last fusillade. Nantes’ colours dropped as he watched, her captain wanting no part of the grapeshot Cobra was about to deliver; the fight was lost, further resistance could only kill his crew. There was a slow, groaning crash as the country ship grounded on the edge of the creek where she had been watering, where the freshwater had forbidden coral.
“Oh, God, sir!”
The country ship was alive with Tolai, brief resistance rapidly overcome, her crew grabbed, knocked on the head, tied hand and foot, suspended from poles carried on two men’s shoulders, carted off. Corpses were collected and briskly gutted and butchered, jointed and taken away. Every piece of metal that could take an edge was picked up, the spirits store looted, the hold picked over and spurned – salt beef was less attractive by far than fresh longpig. Finally they set fire to the ship with the intention of returning to the cold ashes and salvaging useful metal.
“Not a good end, gentlemen.”
Forshaw and Ferrier wiped their mouths, turned back from the rails, nodded in agreement with Jackman.
“Meat dinner tonight, gentlemen!” Frederick cheerfully commented, oblivious to their horror. “What’s the bill, Mr Forshaw?”
“Heavy, sir. We lost a dozen of topmen in that first broadside and gunners afterward. First count gives twenty two dead, and we may have missed some overboard. No officers, but, as you see, Mr Jackman’s face has been cut open – again.”
“You really will have to get out of this habit, Mr Jackman – very unwise in a young man!”
Jackman smiled, painfully.
“As well, sir,” Forshaw continued, “we have lost Midshipman Somers and Lee has a splinter in his chest.”
“He’s dead too, then.”
“Probably, sir. More importantly, Mr Cheek copped one in the arm – his left, fortunately – will have lost it by now.”
“That is annoying! We need the bo’sun! What’s the damage, at first estimate?”
“National flag over tricolour on Nantes, sir,” Jackman reported, “Mr Warren has her in hand.”
“Very good. Are you fit for duty, Mr Jackman?”
“Fully, sir!” Jackman stared defiantly, ignoring the blood trickling down his neck and rapidly ruining his best shirt.
“Damage, sir,” Forshaw continued. “Splicing for a week, probably literally, sir, and the maintopmast has been wounded, to what extent I do not know. Damage to the hull seems to be confined to above the waterline – the advantage of fighting in calm harbour waters, sir, hardly any roll to expose the copper.”
“I had realised that, thank’ee, Mr Forshaw.”
Frederick thought for a few seconds, trying to make a sensible balance of the needs of the three ships.
“You must take Mr Beeton with you and assume command of Nantes, Mr Forshaw, your first duty must be to decide whether we can make her seaworthy or whether she must burn. We are to sail for Bombay on destruction of the marauding squadron. The chain of islands, the Bay of Bengal, Colombo our first port – you must be fully persuaded that Nantes is capable of the voyage, sir.”
“Aye aye, sir. We will make repairs in the bay here, sir?”
“They should not be hungry for a few days, gentlemen – we should be safe for the while, but… Mr Ferrier, the islands in the channel, are they inhabited?”
If there had been anything to observe it was a near certainty that Ferrier would have noted it; part of every master’s job was to draw and comment on unknown coasts and send their notes in to the Admiralty and the Hydrographer. Ferrier, like the bulk of masters, was conscientious in this, kept a detailed running log.
“Villages or smoke on each, sir.”
“Pity, but if they had been uninhabited it would probably have been for lack of water.” Forshaw commented.
“Then we must stay here – did you notice canoes at any of their villages?”
“Several drawn up, sir, though not necessarily sufficient to float a war party.”
“A risk, nonetheless.”
“They should be well-disposed towards us, sir,” Jackman ventured. “After all, we destroyed the enemy who had attacked them, and supplied them with a few good meals.”
“More gifts, sir?” Forshaw suggested. “If they expected us to be generous then they might not wish to attack us.”
“They use stone axes and spearheads, yet they value metal, took all they could from the country ship. A gift of a few cutlasses, perhaps?”
“Boarding axes as well, sir?”
In the end they sent Simons ashore in the jolly boat, Marc and Jean covering him with their rifles and content that they could protect him from a rush even at three hundred yards.
“They should be, too, sir,” Forshaw remarked. “Cobra’s grape cut the anchor cables on the country ship and they shot five men in a row trying to drop a light kedge that might have saved them. Those Fergusons reload so quickly that they can outshoot a whole platoon, and are so accurate. We ought to have a hundred of them, sir.”
“Not from my pocket, Mr Forshaw, not at sixty guineas apiece. Nor, I think, could they be made in quantities – best steel, each nearly three months of a craftsman’s labour, not produced in numbers in a manufactury.”
Not even England was rich enough to equip her troops with such rifles; they were, and remained, a rare curiosity.
Watched anxiously, Simons jumped from boat to the strip of black sand, trotted above the high tide mark, placed three cutlasses on a strip of canvas, ran at top speed back again. Never having heard of the long sling or its range, he relaxed, rode carefree back to Charybdis. As he climbed up the side three old women paced gravely along the beach, peered at the presents, took one apiece and marched off. The canvas fluttered in a gust of wind and a small boy appeared, placed four careful stones to hold it in the hope that it might be needed again, ran into the low bushes under the palm trees. The palm fronds rustled gently, the waves lapped, the burning country ship, stern opened to the water, slipped slowly down the mud and settled just offshore in a cloud of steam and smoke. All became still again under the midday sun.
“What are your casualties, Captain Warren?”
“Report here, sir. Virtually nil, sir. We took no fire from Nantes, little enough from the country ship, sir, both busy with Charybdis as they were. Two men killed by small arms fire, three more-or-less wounded. Damage – a couple of splices and a patched sail. Dealt with, sir. My bos’n and half of a watch, sir?”
“They would be most welcome, if you would be so good. Doctor Morris has his hands full. Is your surgeon busy?”
“Bastard can’t stand, sir! He uses brandy as an anaesthetic when he operates – he can’t feel a thing now.”
It was cruel to
laugh and Frederick was quite shame-faced at doing so; he made a note to repeat the tale when next he gave a dinner.
“Final figures, Doctor?”
It was evening, the brief tropical twilight rapidly drawing in; they were at about four degrees south, days and nights of virtually equal length the year round. Morris had no emergency left, need not take the added risk of operating with no daylight at all, had come on deck for the first time in the day.
“For today, sir – twenty two brought to me or the sailmaker already dead, including young Mr Somers. Four amputations of leg or arm; one died under the knife and one will die tomorrow for not wishing to live – three splinters, two did for his right leg, the third higher, took his manhood and his will.”
The fear that every fighting man shared – anywhere else, God, but not there!
“Mr Cheek’s left arm was shattered below the elbow. He cut off the remains with his jack knife, bound it in his shirt, tied off by the sleeves, and got on with his business. He walked down to me after Nantes surrendered, sat while I trimmed and made all tidy – he had left a flap of skin and flesh to sew over, said he had heard that was how it was done. He is in his own berth now, said I would need the space in the bay for badly injured men. I have detailed a boy to watch over his sleep.”
“I have heard of it before, Doctor – never believed the tales. A harder man than I! What of young Lee?”
“A very lucky young man, sir. Splinter again, of course, scored across his chest, flensed it to the bone, but did not pierce the cavity or break ribs or breastbone. He will have the scar of the world there, as big as my hand, fingers splayed, but – while gangrene does not supervene – he will return to duty in a week.”
“Good – I hate burying boys, so very upsetting! Mr Jackman’s face?”
“Will be scarred cruelly, sir, but again his eyes have remained untouched. While the fever and the gangrene stay away, he will do, sir.”
“Is this a fever coast, think you, Doctor Morris?”
“Not while the wind blows, sir – but in the Doldrums, I would fear for all my patients.”
“Mr Ferrier judges we have a week of the wet winds yet. I intend to sail in six days time.”
They fished the maintopmast – eight sturdy battens spiked above and below the fractured timber, wet sailcloth wrapped tightly round and round, the bandage left to shrink dry in the sun, then frapped with turn after turn of their best cordage, crosslaid and knotted every second turn.
“No main topgallants, sir,” Ferrier instructed, “not even in the lightest of zephyrs. Reefed topsail and watch her, sir. She will go, sir – they always do – they work with wind and the roll, sir, and the cracks spread oh so slowly, no more than a thousandth in a day perhaps, then one day she will pitch awkwardly, or a sudden rogue wave will make her whiplash, and then you’ll hear the final snapping and down she’ll come – unless so be you make the dockyard first, and we have three thousand miles under our forefoot and a wounded consort to slow us. We cannot cut another on this coast, sir, for lack of tall, straight trees that I can see, and no way of putting a party ashore, either!”
On the fourth morning Simons prepared his gift, set off for the beach, was casually setting the cutlasses out when he heard movement and froze in horror as figures appeared at the edge of the palms. The three matriarchs walked slowly forward bearing between them what looked like a white wheel some three feet in diameter and a hand thick; they laid it carefully on the canvas, reached out for the steel blades, pointed to their trade, made encouraging noises.
Simons brought his trophy back, displayed it to the amaze of the quarterdeck. The wheel was made of coils of shell pierced by thin, flexible rattan cane, hundreds of yards of it. Each small cowrie had been cut and ground to a circular disc, the size of a child’s fingernail, sand-buffed smooth and bright, painstakingly drilled through and then threaded, six or seven to the inch, onto the creeper.
“A mile at least, sir. Thousands of hours of work!”
“Shell money, sir, that’s what it is,” Ferrier offered. “I have heard of it, read of it, this must be it – a fortune to them.”
“We must reciprocate, gentlemen. How? We have no trade goods, must not give away rations or guns. Of course, the French seamen were quite popular – we could give them our prisoners.”
It was intimated to Frederick that even as a joke this was not to be suggested.
“Beg pardon, sir,” muttered young Warren, bashful, loth to speak up despite his wonderful new commission. “The Nantes, sir, must have had more than a hundred seaman’s knives from the prisoners, and there will be all of the cutlasses and axes the French had – we could give them those.”
A day of collecting the weapons together, of sharpening them, fixing handles, making them look as new as possible and then the longboat loaded and followed Simons to his beach with a new, much larger strip of canvas. Three boarding axes were followed by eight lines of ten seaman’s knives, all that were presentable enough; next to them, neatly laid out, nearly two hundred cutlasses, four big felling axes and a dozen old-fashioned half pikes of the sort sometimes still used to defend a ship’s sides against boarders.
Simons stood, turned to the palms and bowed politely to the faintly visible figures in the shadows then retreated to the boats. The three old ladies appeared, stopped, looked, called urgently, led a procession of women forward to pick up the incredible largesse laid out before them.
Soon after that the garamuts began to boom, fathom long slit gongs hollowed out from tree trunks passing messages in complex patterns of drumbeats, but what they said Charybdis never discovered.
The three ships beat out of the bay in a fitful south westerly, the wind almost dry, losing force and direction as the Wet came to its end. Nantes, fore and mizzen jury-rigged, cobbled together and stumpy, laboured horribly, her thin prize crew watched by paroled prisoners not themselves bound to lift a finger and free in their comments. As befitted ships of the Navy on passage, they formed line astern as soon as they reached open waters, each in the wake of the next at a precise two cables, a formation they proposed not to break over the miles to Colombo.
The same sad admiral presided over the skeleton of half-manned Colombo, cheering up when he heard of the utter destruction of the French. Stories of the depredations wrought by the raiders had come west with every junk, proa and Indiaman – some of them had been true.
“Eaten by fuzzy Papuans, eh? Probably gave the poor buggers indigestion! Still, all’s well that ends well, when all’s said and done. Took their frigates and all their prizes, did ye say? Well done, young man! The dockyard is empty at the moment, and the Indian Ocean is stormy at this time of year – you would be well advised to refit here, sir.”
Frederick hesitated – his orders were for Bombay and another month of delay might not be appreciated.
“To be honest, Captain Harris, you would be obliging me. No work for the dockyard and it may be shut down, which would, I think, be very short-sighted, for Colombo is placed to be of great use to the Navy in future years.”
Frederick instantly agreed – never refuse an admiral begging a favour – they hated to do it and had long memories for the disobliging.
“I am due in Bombay, sir, but my master will not thank me for refusing a new maintopmast, and, as for Nantes, we battered her cruelly, sir. Can we set our prisoners ashore for the while, sir? They are a nuisance to guard aboard ship.”
“Land them, Captain Harris. There is a prison here and we can ration them at no inconvenience at all.”
Light slowly dawned – the admiral wanted neither yard nor prison to remain inactive, for good and sufficient reason.
“Rations, forsooth! The good of the Navy! Ghosts, Mr Forshaw, that was what was in his mind!”
Forshaw, secretly relieved to have traversed the length of the Spice Islands and the sea to Ceylon without disaster, was unsure of the precise role of the supernatural in the matters of dockyards and prisoners of war. He took refuge in tradition
al fashion.
“Yes, sir!”
“Hungry ghosts, Mr Forshaw?”
“Ah… ectoplasm, sir?”
Frederick was happy to enlighten Forshaw’s ignorance.
“The Admiral’s prison, Mr Forshaw, will contain real prisoners and ghost prisoners who exist only on paper but will have their rations issued. The prison will be guarded by a locally raised battalion, drawing all pay and perquisites, and of which only one company will be real. The yard will make its repairs, and indent for twice as many. There must be some real bodies, real ships to repair, for the pump must be primed, as it were, but when all is organised, ghosts go in one end and gold comes out of the other.”
“And, sir, knowing that…”
“Yes, Mr Forshaw – I make myself accessory, and Charybdis has a maintopmast and Nantes has a fore and mizzen – despite not being bought into the service yet – and the Master Intendant will take your Frog twelves and replace them with English, shot and powder, too.”
“Are English cannon better made, sir?”
Frederick was delighted – he had knowledge that the insufferable Forshaw lacked and, for once, could patronise him, turn the tables.
“Why, Mr Forshaw, did ye not know of the problem of the French pound, ‘poid’ they call it? It is not a fixed measure, as in England, but varies from place to place across the country, and the one used by their Admiralty in Paris has but fifteen or so English ounces, so our twelve pound balls are too big to fit their bore. I am told, by the way, that the pound of Marseilles is different to that of Paris, by how much I do not know, but as a result in past times a ship out of Brest might not be able to fire ball from Toulon.”
“So the yard will take them from us, sir… that is good of them.”
“Very!”
Forshaw thought a few seconds, nodded grimly. “They are of no value, so they must destroy them, perhaps by selling them for scrap metal.”
“Of course, Mr Forshaw – to local princes who want artillery and possess foundries that can cast rounds to their specification, the yard to receive scrap price, the difference to be pocketed.”
The Fuzzy-Wuzzy Man (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 3) Page 9
